2014 Fitness Journey

In December 2013 I decided to challenge myself to be consistent regarding fitness. For once perhaps I will achieve the result I desire. Below is a picture of my friends and me on December 2013.

December 2013. Picture by Alisya Soraya

Unhealthy Lifestyle

Despite going to the gym and workout. I was not living a healthy lifestyle. I enjoyed partying and as a result I did not have enough rest. I did measure my calories intake but I did not plan my diet properly. I was one of those who believes that as long as I workout I am free to consume anything I like. I was dead wrong. As a result I often experience dizziness, tiredness, and fatigue. Unfortunately I did not learn my lesson. By the end of 2013 I ended up gaining more body fats as well as body weight. I ended up with 36% body fat and 98 kilograms. That was when I decided things have to change.

Getting Proper Rest

I used to believe that I do not need much sleep. Four hours was good enough for me. Five would be too much. That mindset however was changed. Four hours is now too few for me while five is insufficient. Now I will need at least six hours of sleep. Whenever I woke up earlier and still feeling tired or experiencing any dizziness I will head back to bed. As a result of this I no longer experience dizziness as often as I used to and I no longer fall sick easily. In 2013 it was impossible for me to go through a month without falling sick.

Planning My Workout

I have been going to gym since 2009. However I have been doing the same routine repetitively. Without a doubt my body was used to it. I have always been focusing on weight lifting and ignoring cardio. I will try to lift as heavy as I can without getting into the right form. In order to fix this I decided to learn about different workout method. Along the way I discovered drop set. Wikipedia defines drop as:

a technique for continuing an exercise with a lower weight once muscle failure has been achieved at a higher weight.

If you are unfamiliar, drop set is where you start by lifting heavy weights with lesser repetition. Once you have started to feel muscle sore switch to lighter weight and keep lifting till failure. Drop set requires minimal rest time. Muscle and Fitness has good example for doing dropset. As mentioned earlier I used to ignore cardio. Weight lifting is all that matters to me. However I have changed that. I spend the first 15 minutes doing cardio on weight lifting days and 30 to 90 minutes of running on non weight lifting days. On non weight lifting days I usually be running to a park. It can be either 5 km, 7 km, or 10 km. After few months the effort paid off. Here is a picture of me on 1st June

Car Free Morning June 2014. Picture by Keat Yee

I started to participate in Car Free Morning event which happen on every first Sunday of every month. November 2014 edition is the best one for me as I finally appear on Running Malaysia’s Facebook album.

Planning My Diet

As the famous saying goes, “30% workout and 70% diet”. It is difficult to achieve a good result without a proper diet.

This is a bigger challenge for me as compare to workout. Even till today I am still trying to get the right diet for my body. During past years I tend to focus on daily calories consumption. For example, I know that my body need at least 2200 kcal per day. Hence I will consume 2200 kcal per day regardless of the type of food. Instead of clean and healthy food, most of the time I ended up with deep fried, or sweet food. Without a doubt this does not help.

I started learning about micronutrient. Consuming enough calories is not enough. You have to know what and how much to consume. Knowing the right diet provides enough nutrition for the body and this helps in burning fat and having enough energy. Although there times where I went against my diet plan.

I usually do it once every three months. For a week period I will not restrict myself to any diet plan.

The Outcome

Till today I have managed to reduce my body fat to 26% while my body weight is now 94 kilograms. My waist was 36′ and now it is 34′. Also now I can fit into M size t-shirt. As you can see the progress is not much but it is good enough for me for a start.

It has been a fun and worthy journey for me and I am excited to see what will happen in 2015!